A Few Multiple-Choice Words

Mark RosewaterMonday, October 25, 2010

hen Development wants an intern, they tend to check on the Pro Tour and see if there are any players that fit a certain profile that has proven successful in the past to find new developers. When Design wants an intern, we run a reality show. (This is partly because finding a design intern is a bit harder than finding a development intern and partly because I'm a fan of reality shows—not all of them, but the good ones.)

For those of you who have been living under a rock, a few weeks ago we began The Great Designer Search 2 (GDS2) where any qualified applicant has a chance to become the next Magic design intern. Only eight people are going to compete in the "show" portion of the GDS2. To narrow down from over a thousand applicants to eight, we had to have a few qualifying tests.

The first test was an essay test with ten questions each requiring an answer from 250-350 words. The third test was a design test, making the designers create their own word and then create ten preview cards to show it off. The middle test is the topic of today's column. To advance from the second to the third round, you had to take a fifty-question multiple-choice test. The test was graded on a curve, as only one hundred of the applicants (approximately) would pass. That cut ended up being a score of 44.

Do you have what it takes to pass? Find out today as I let all of you take the test. Afterwards, we'll give you your score and then I'll walk you through all the answers—yours, and the correct ones. (If you don't want to take the test, just click here and it will take you right to the answers.)

The rules for this test were simple. Applicants could use any resource they wanted except for other people. (Hint: Making Magic columns are very useful.) They were given twenty-four hours. Those were the rules. So, let's see how you measure up to the 790 applicants who took the multiple-choice test.